Le Juif errant. English

by Eugène Sue

  CHAPTER V. THE RETURN.

  As soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster,the general fight became terrible, ardent, implacable. A flood ofassailants, following the quarryman's steps, rushed into the housewith irresistible fury; others, unable to force their way through thisdreadful crowd, where the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushedthese who were less so, went round in another direction, broke throughsome lattice work, and thus placed the people of the factory, as itwere, between two fires. Some resisted courageously; others, seeingCiboule, followed by some of her horrible companions, and by severalof the most ill-looking ruffians, hastily enter that part of theCommon-Dwelling house in which the women had taken refuge, hurried inpursuit of this band; but some of the hag's companions, having facedabout, and vigorously defended the entrance of the staircase against theworkmen, Ciboule, with three or four like herself, and about the samenumber of no less ignoble men, rushed through the rooms, with theintention of robbing or destroying all that came in their way. A door,which at first resisted their efforts, was soon broken through;Ciboule rushed into the apartment with a stick in her hand, her hairdishevelled, furious, and, as it were, maddened with the noise andtumult. A beautiful young girl (it was Angela), who appeared anxiousto defend the entrance to a second chamber, threw herself on her knees,pale and supplicating, and raising her clasped hands, exclaimed: "Do nothurt my mother!"

  "I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards," replied thehorrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring totear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianlyband broke the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessedthemselves of some articles of wearing apparel.

  Angela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, andstill attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge;whilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to theirassistance. The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster. In a closestruggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyesand clinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like twoserpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other.Agricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of thequarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such wasthe Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remainedfirm as a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand thatwas still free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise),he endeavored with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who,leaning his head forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breastof his adversary.

  "The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,"said the quarryman.

  "You are no true Wolf," answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; "thetrue Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one."

  "True or false, I will break your teeth."

  "And I your paw," said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the legof the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and,with the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head,succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.

  The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabledthe quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, hethrew himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to theground, falling himself upon him.

  At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows ofthe Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: "Help,Agricola!--they are killing my child!"

  "Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when youwill," said Agricola, panting for breath.

  "No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot," answered the quarryman,seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of hisknees upon his chest.

  "Help!--they are killing my child!" cried Angela's mother, in a voice ofdespair.

  "Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!"' said Agricola, making the most violentefforts to escape.

  "I am too hungry," answered the quarryman.

  Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricolaredoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seizedby the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from avigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. Herelaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst hemechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased assoon as Agricola was delivered.

  "Father, you have saved me!" cried the smith, springing up. "If only Iam in time to rescue Angela!"

  "Run!--never mind me!" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into thehouse.

  Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said,to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in themidst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defendthe entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had beencarried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier hadseen Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separatedDagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeededin forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, andrushed into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment hereached it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face withboth hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, wastrying to scratch and disfigure her.

  To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair withirresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretchher full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievementas rapid as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almostinstantly; but at this moment, several workmen, who had followed closeupon Agricola, were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smithlifted the fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room,Ciboule and her band were driven from that part of the house.

  After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had theweakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under thepretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committedby the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and rangedthemselves on the side of the Devourers.

  "There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one ofthe most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fightingroughly and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who mustunite to drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break andpillage."

  "Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began bybreaking your windows."

  "The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash theirhands of him. We shall soon settle his account."

  "We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other."(35)

  This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but asmall portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and alltogether, Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number,opposed themselves to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to newexcesses. Some of these wretches, still further excited by the littleman with the ferret's face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud,now rushed in a mass towards the workshops of M. Hardy. Then begana lamentable devastation. These people, seized with the mania ofdestruction, broke without remorse machines of the greatest value, andmost delicate construction; half manufactured articles were pitilesslydestroyed; a savage emulation seemed to inspire these barbarians,and those workshops, so lately the model of order and well-regulatedeconomy, were soon nothing but a wreck; the courts were strewed withfragments of all kinds of wares, which were thrown from the windows withferocious outcries, or savage bursts of laughter. Then, still thanks tothe incitements of the little man with the ferret's face, the booksof M. Hardy, archives of commercial industry, so indispensable to thetrader, were scattered to the wind, torn, trampled under foot, in a sortof infernal dance, comp
osed of all that was most impure in this assemblyof low, filthy, and ragged men and women, who held each other by thehand, and whirled round and round with horrible clamor. Strange andpainful contrasts! At the height of the stunning noise of these horriddeeds of tumult and devastation, a scene of imposing and mournful calmwas taking place in the chamber of Marshal Simon's father, the door ofwhich was guarded by a few devoted men. The old workman was stretchedon his bed, with a bandage across his blood stained white hair. Hiscountenance was livid, his breathing oppressed, his look fixed andglazed.

  Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on thepart of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger onthe failing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, werekneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed intears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, forthe hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagoberthimself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his featurespainfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in thischamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or byFather Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,and full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, tointerrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences inlife. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor beingclose to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame beingwidely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on thefirst call for medical assistance.

  Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not takenhis eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"

  "At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."

  "He is saved!" said the marshal.

  "Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor,gravely: "the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to thefeet, but I know not what will be the issue of the crisis."

  "Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old manslightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened hiseyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.

  "Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy andhope.

  "Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice. "Yourhand--give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.

  "Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the oldman in his own.

  Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father,covered his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives!kind heaven, he lives! he is saved!"

  At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced betweenthe rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dyingman.

  "That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."

  "It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitatehis father.

  "Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not longto live."

  "Father--"

  "Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."

  "Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhapswork a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow apriest--"

  "A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in hisarms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."

  "You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"

  "Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, graduallygrew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. Ithink, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for amoment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a roadunworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at thislast hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty toperform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain ofneglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--"

  Here the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the lastsentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that MarshalSimon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--myson!"

  Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all wasover. At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terribleshouts were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!" The conflagration hadbroken out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, intowhich had glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the sametime, the roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing thearrival of a detachment of troops from town.

  During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreadingthrough the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blowskeenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across thefields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advanceswith slow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to returnhome on foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm thefever in his blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He hadnot been deceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom hemight have found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deceptionwhich had just been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could haveno doubt of it. Margaret was gone to America. Her mother had exactedfrom her, in expiation of her fault, that she should not even write tohim one word of farewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her dutyas a wife. Margaret had obeyed.

  Besides, she had often said to him: "Between my mother and you, I shouldnot hesitate."

  She had not hesitated. There was therefore no hope, not the slightest;even if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enoughof her blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relationsbetween them were broken off forever. It is well. He will no longerreckon upon this heart--his last refuge. The two roots of his life havebeen torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at thesame moment. What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thytender mother used to call thee? What remains to console thee for theloss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed? Oh!there remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created afterthe image of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing,where, thanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense. Theseworthy artisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, willnot fail thee. That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thyshelter in the midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacredconvictions! The calm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sightof the unequalled happiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor,suffering soul, which now seems to live only for suffering. Come! youwill soon reach the top of the hill, from which you can see afar, in theplain below, that paradise of workmen, of which you are the presidingdivinity.

  M. Hardy had reached the summit of the hill. At that moment theconflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubledfury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached. A brightstreak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminatedthe distant horizon. M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous,almost idiotic stupor. Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up inthe thick of a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, andstreamed towards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all thecountry, even to M. Hardy's feet. The violence of the north wind,driving the flames in waves before it, soon brought to the ears of M.Hardy the hurried clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.

  (35) We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our storyalone have made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paintthe evils arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wishto ascribe a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than tothe other to the Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a clubof united stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen,whose situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only theirlabors, conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest andmost we
arisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three orfour months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one ofthose which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves,in order to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening acourse of linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogousto that given by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters.Several working stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster tothe last exhibition.